Sliding sensor using fiber Bragg grating for mechanical fingers

A sliding sensor based on a fiber Bragg grating (FBG) was proposed to enable mechanical fingers to softly grasp an object. FBG strain sensors are embedded in a polymeric material as a sensing element to obtain sliding information. This study expounded the structural design of the sliding sensor and the mechanism of sliding sensation, which were verified using the finite element simulation. The static and dynamic performances of the sliding sensor were studied experimentally. Finally, the sensing signals were processed using fuzzy logic. Results show that the FBG sliding sensor with a simple structure has high sensitivity and can reliably detect the contact state of the target object, thereby providing a design scheme for the study of the sliding sense of mechanical fingers.